Various pen-shaped apparatus or styli have been designed and developed as inputting tools for use with portable electronic devices such as tablets, smart phones, personal digital assistants, or in general any computer with a touch-sensitive screen. A conventional stylus is generally configured with a pen-shaped body for easy gripping by a user, and a tip for engaging the input screen of an electronic device so that the user can tap, handwrite, or draw on the input screen, usually with relatively higher precision and better control than using a finger of the user.
For example, digital pens and pencils, such as the Apple Pencil, work in combination with touch-screen devices such as tablets to create a precise input device that can act as a pencil, pen, or highlighter of any color. The characteristics of what a digital pen does are typically defined by user interface selections in a mobile app. For example, to use a digital pen as a red pen, the user must make menu selections in an app to indicate this. Then, to change the characteristics of the digital pen to act as a yellow highlighter, other menu options must be selected.
The procedures needed for the user to make the selections to change the characteristics or the use of the digital pen is cumbersome, time-consuming and inconvenient.